“This is only the second time in history that one country has paid for both sides of a war,” said Murray Campbell, quoting former CIA Director James Woolsey.
While the United States was the world’s largest exporter of oil at the end of World War II, today, the country imports 69 percent of the 143 billion gallons it consumes annually, which includes the fuel used by U.S. troops in Iraq, Campbell said.
“How many of you walked over here today?” he asked the group.
In Camilla, where First United Ethanol LLC is set to go online in October producing 100 million gallons of ethanol a year, FUEL will make ethanol from corn — not cellulose, peanuts or switchgrass, also known as hay, he said.
Why? “Because we can,” said Campbell, the son-in-law of Kiwanian Rudy Rigsby.
Spurred by the director of Mitchell County’s Development Authority, nine investors put $40,000 apiece into a feasibility study of building Georgia’s first corn ethanol plant, and before long FUEL made an initial public offering of $1.2 million, raising $59 million from investors in Southwest Georgia, Campbell said.
While several other entities around the state are developing facilities to produce fuel from other plant matter, the technology is available now to make corn ethanol, though the model being employed Georgia, California and New York is slightly different than that of the “corn patch” ethanol plants dotting the Midwest, he said.
Being constructed by Fagen, Inc., the plant will convert 100,000 bushels of corn a day into a 200-proof ethyl alcohol, blowing no more smoke than Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, which holds the same level of air quality permit, he said.
The fuel can be transported from the plant by Norfolk-Southern rail lines through Albany or CSX lines by way of Thomasville, he said.
The process is only marginally responsible for food prices that have risen by 43 percent, Campbell added.
Generally, corn is “not a human food product,” and its move from cattle and chicken feed into fuel production is driving food prices up by only about 2-3 percent, he said.
Members from the group of about 30 Golden K senior Kiwanis Club members pelted Campbell with questions — from whether the liquid was drinkable to the possibility of growing two corn crops per year.
At the Camilla plant one bushel of corn will be converted into 2.875 gallons of ethanol; FUEL hopes to reach 3 gallons, he said.
The liquid initially is a barely drinkable 200-proof alcohol, but the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms requires the plant add 4 percent alcohol to ensure that it is not, Campbell said.
Club member Jack Powell, who serves as chairman of the Regional Development Council, said FUEL’s efforts were “all positive” for the region.
“It’s the biggest economic development project I believe in Southwest Georgia — maybe ever,” Powell said.
As an answer to the nation’s dependence on oil, added Charles McGee, “I think it’s going to be good, but it’s not the final answer.”